My mom opens the door before I can fish my key to the family home out of my pocket. Her glowing smile makes me feel sick to the deepest, darkest depths of my stomach. She has no idea. Not a clue. How could she? Her toothy grin reminds me of the first time she brought me home and the guilt is a filthy rag to a depraved bull. She's opened the door to her cookie cutter home, with her perfect husband and father, and I'm here to shatter their fucking lives. I'm here to ruin everything they've built. The happiness of their children, the success of their careers, the good-standing of the Trevelyan-Grey name. I'm here to ruin all and she welcomes me with open arms.

"Christian."

It's amazing how much love she can pack into one name. My name. She thinks I'm here for dinner. To catch up. She's calling my father's name over her shoulder. He appears at the door as she practically manhandles me over the threshold, careful to avoid my torso. Carrick's smile matches Grace's as he launches into a full-blown strategy session about the legalities of my upcoming merger. I can see his lips are moving, but I don't hear what he's saying. The fire crackles in the dining room as my mom moves off with that smile still planted firmly in place to retrieve some platter or other of food. I drop into my familiar place at the table and time stands still.

"Stop."

My voice is ringing. It's louder than it usually is. I'm shorter, snappier. They both pause in surprise. I'm cold. They all know this. But I'm usually polite to a flawless fault. I don't snap. Not at them. Carrick's legal wisdom dies in his throat as Grace comes to halt behind his chair, instinctively resting a warm hand gently on his shoulder. Shadows crowd her face. She senses it. A mother always knows.

And my mother knows that right now, somehow, shit is about to get real.

I falter. I don't know if I can do this. I can't unsay what I'm here to say. I can't cram the genie back into the bottle it's been occupying for the last nine years. Once this scandal is out, it is out. My family will never be the same again. I can feel their concerned and borderline frightened gazes drilling into me. My lungs gratefully accept the copious influx of air, though my head spins. I just need to say it. I told Flynn that I would just say it. Today is the day we've been talking about for the longest time, and I can't leave here without accomplishing what I set out to do.

If I do, I'll never do it and then Elena wins. That is… unacceptable.

I don't look at them as I speak in a low, muted tone. I can't. There are many, many things that I can do and do well. But looking my trusting, oblivious parents in the eyes while I tell them their friend and confidant raped and molested me under their noses for all those years is not something I can do. That is not something I can do well. That is not something I can fucking handle. But I have to. I have to handle it. Now.

"There's something you need to know. You need to know it now… you need to hear it from me and you need to listen to me until I'm finished. This thing that I'm about to tell you is not going to be easy for you to hear. It's not going to be easy for you to understand and it's definitely not going to be easy for you to live with. But this thing that I'm going to tell you, is about to become very public, very fast. I need you both to be prepared. As prepared as you can be."

I don't need to look at them to know they're paling.

I don't need to look at them to know they're exchanging frightened glances.

I don't need to look at them to know they're absolutely shitting themselves.

"When I was fifteen years old, I was out of control. You both know that better than anyone else. I was angry, full of violent rage and I hated pretty much everything and everyone. Then, moving towards my sixteenth birthday, I started to plateau out. I started to calm. Began to get good grades, settle down in school and generally seemed to be happier and embarking on the right path. You both are aware of this change."

I don't need to look that them to know their eyes are popping.

I don't need to look at them to know their jaws are beginning to drop.

I don't need to look at them to know my mom's gentle hand is tightening.

"What you are both unaware of is the reason behind that change. That very sudden, inexplicable change. The fact that you're both unaware of that reason is because it is depraved, abhorrent and utterly repellent. So much so that until very recently, I completely underestimated the extent of that revolting, nauseating reason. I had as a matter of fact, conditioned myself to believe that the reason was my salvation, the best thing that had ever happened to me. The spark behind my recent successes."

I don't need to look at them because I can't bear to look at them.

"But it was actually the worst thing that ever happened to me. Even worse than the circumstances of my birth and early years. And I need you to know about it now because I'm finally in a position to seek justice for what was done to me. And what was done to me is something you're both going to struggle to accept but please, I need your acceptance. I need you to take my word. I need you to trust me."

I need them to stand with me, but I'm too emotionally defective to say that. This is it. This is actually it. My eyes are fixated at the dining room table where I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner as a child and I'm about to shatter that idyllic setting for them. For the people who took me in out of the kindness of their hearts and have been putting up with my shit ever since.

"Elena Lincoln seduced me when I was fifteen years old. I lost my virginity to her. She introduced me to a world of admittedly perverse and depraved sexual practices. We engaged in a select carnal relationship for many years, before I began to realize what had happened to me upon beginning therapy like you both suggested. I broke off the relationship just after my twenty-third birthday and it's taken me the remaining year to get to this point. I am going to the DA's office. I want her prosecuted for what she did to me. I need to make sure, to make really fucking sure, that she can never do what she did to me, to some other messed up fifteen-year-old kid."

The explanation was hurried, frenzied and burst from me like a rocket.

I don't know how I feel. I don't feel the enlightenment. I don't experience a gentle cleansing of my charred soul. There is no epiphany. No light bulb moment, no surge of euphoria. I think, all in all, I feel the same. The demons are the same, the weight on my shoulders is the same and despite my neurotic and obsessive hygiene routine, I feel as dirty as ever. As sullied as ever. The silence is resounding. The crackling flames no longer dare to crackle. I'm going to have to look at them. I'm going to have to swap an inanimate tablecloth for some very animate parents and I need to do it now.

To my dying day, I will never forget the look in my mother's eyes.

To my dying day, I will never forget the look on my father's face.

I will never fucking forget.

They say nothing for an interminable eternity. Not a word do they share between them. They merely stare at me as if they had never truly seen me. Which, in fairness, is sort of true. Fear suddenly grips me. What if they don't believe me? Elena is still a big part of their lives. My mother still plays bridge with her for fucks sake. How will they possibly be able to wrap their heads around the bomb I've just launched at them? Real fear suddenly consumes me.

Aspirations cast upon my sanity are not entirely an unknown in my family.

But then the fear melts away. I see it before she says it. I feel it before he blinks it. They believe me. They really fucking believe me. My mother is a fierce woman and only a fierce woman could have tears of horror in her eyes and a snarl of murder on her lips. She removes her hand slowly from my father's shoulder and they exchange a look that I'm on the fringe of.

A married look.

Dr Grey walks slowly towards me. Carrick remains seated. He is an empathetic man. He knows Grace, and I, despite my unuttered love for him, share a special connection. She saved me. She wrapped me in softest whites and she saved me. My first memory that doesn't skin me with pain is of her. He knows this needs to come from her. She knows this needs to come from her. Hell, even I, an emotional subhuman knows that this needs to come from her.

The hand that was on my father's shoulder descends onto mine.

She senses I cannot be touched any more than that right now.

The gentle squeeze is worth more than all the growing millions in my bank.

"Christian," she whispers, "There is so much more that we need to know, there is so much more than we need to understand. There is so much more we need to discuss. But there is only thing that you need to know and understand right now. There is only this one thing that you need to believe and believe without question or hesitation. I need you to listen to me right now while I tell you what that is, ok?"

I nod. It's all I can offer.

The hand curls around my shoulder even more firmly and yet, softly. Her voice is a strange conflict of motherly adoration and animalistic fury. She's trembling and radiating in equal measure behind me. Her voice tremors but her diction is flawless and her words bleed into my long-term memory, never to be forgotten.

"Your father and I are going to be by your side. We will be by your side throughout every single step of the way that it takes to bring that filthy, pedophilic predator to justice. We will not rest until she rots behind bars. We will not rest until you get the justice you deserve. We will not rest until she can never hurt you or anyone else, ever again."

I close my eyes and hang my head.

I know now why I feel nothing. Why I feel no heavenly absolution or cleansing. It's because I have nothing left to give. It's because the secret that I've just unleashed was a life force of its own within me for years and years on end. And now that's it's not my secret anymore, now that it's out there…

I am utterly, truly, and irrevocably fucking spent.